Stolen From Cradle, Now Back to Rage

Young adult television typically cleaves into two camps — it’s either about the absurd comedy of teenage life, or its unending tragedy. The plotlines aren’t that different, but in the first category, characters respond to pain with charm and wit, while in the other, their shoulders droop, and they stew in bad lighting.

MTV has lately excelled with signature Technicolor dramedies like “Awkward” and “Faking It,” shows that are like “My So-Called Life” by way of “Clueless.” They’re graphic novels come to life, full of vivacious characters who’d rather roll their eyes than weep any day. ABC Family is home to the other clique, with shows like “Pretty Little Liars” and “Switched at Birth,” which have horrible ruptures at their core and characters who pinball from one questionable decision to the next.

Carter Stevens (Kathryn Prescott) is a hero of that first kind of show trapped in the amber of the other on “Finding Carter,” which has a two-hour premiere on MTV on Tuesday night.

After Carter is arrested, she learns that the woman who raised her, Lori (Milena Govich), is not, in fact, her birth mother, but the woman who kidnapped her from her family when she was 3. Now 16, Carter is summarily thrust back into her birth family: a cold mother, Elizabeth (Cynthia Watros), who also happens to be a police officer looking for the kidnapper; a limp father, David (Alexis Denisof), whose only success as a writer came in the form of a book about the family tragedy; a goody two-shoes twin sister, Taylor (Anna Jacoby-Heron); and a savant younger brother, Grant (Zac Pullam), the only emotionally articulate family member.

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Ms. Prescott and Alex Saxon in “Finding Carter,” in which a teenager returns to the family from which she was stolen.CreditMTV

Carter — “My other mom’s a felon; she’s the one I take after,” she says — is a hellion, stomping through her new house with glee, stealing the family’s car and getting drunk at parties soundtracked by Iggy Azalea. Pried from her life and dumped into foreign territory, she is pure disruption, inspiring envy in Taylor and admiration in Grant. And she doesn’t give Elizabeth an inch: “You’re stiff! You’re humorless! You’re a control freak! You operate from this place of fear!”

Taylor is the china in a bull shop, wanting desperately to be broken. “I lived in constant fear of the terrible thing that happened to my sister,” she says, explaining why she has values that are effectively Amish.

Much like the shows on ABC Family, “Finding Carter” has a muted palette, and is full of double crosses, shifting sympathies and warring dualities: Carter and Taylor, fighting for attention from family and boys; Carter and her birth mother, both searching for Lori; Elizabeth and David, each selfishly looking to bond with Carter and outflank the other; and Elizabeth and Lori, each trying to be Carter’s mother.

And there’s a very teenage cynicism at this show’s root: the idea that all families are built on lies. Carter, still stunned by the turn of events, believes that her new life is a sham and hasn’t yet come to grips with the fact that her old life was one, too. Both are the byproduct of extreme parental intrusion: her old one is a result of kidnapping, and her new one suffers from the heavy-handed tactics of Elizabeth, who’s been shattered by the upheaval and is determined not to let Carter out of her sight. “Want to find my abductor?” Carter shouts at her. “It’s you!” (But come on, all mothers are kind of police officers, no?)

Carter has friends, but they’re mostly “Breakfast Club” archetypes. The one exception is Ofe (Jesse Carere), the rare sui generis sidekick on a teen show. A bookie, a grifter and a nest of neuroses, he’s Jesse Eisenberg meets John Cusack, confident in his eccentricity. “If drug dealers were on Yelp, he would be getting five stars,” he tells Carter before giving her some ecstasy, then adds, “A Yelp for drug dealers — that’s potentially a huge idea.”

Naturally, by the second episode, Carter is splattering her paint all over her new canvas: getting Taylor drunk, giving Grant hope for a cool life, even helping Elizabeth and David to communicate with each other. But no one’s quite gotten to her yet. She’s creating her own little “Pleasantville,” letting everyone around her breathe for the first time while she decides whether to stay or go.